Scent of a Sideswipe
by Anais Lacquestar
Summary: Armada. Stuck in the bottom of a canyon, Sideswipe reveals an earth-shattering secret to Blurr. Well, earth-shattering may be too strong a word...
1. Default Chapter

**Scent of a Sideswipe**

Obligatory Note- _When I was a child, Sideswipe was a red Lamborghini and Blurr was an out-of-this world fast blue car. Times have changed and now Sideswipe looks like a Volvo with an ugly spoiler but Blurr is still a fast car. Set in Armada-verse. Result of stupid joke taken too far regarding Sideswipe's appearance. I own nothing and no one. Transformers belongs to Hasbro. No money was made from this silly story._

Lying at the bottom of a steep canyon, able to only see the dim shadow of the sky very far above, Sideswipe decided then and there that it had been a very bad idea to attack Tidal Wave. It wasn't the first very bad idea Sideswipe had ever had, nor would it be the last. All too often the impulsive Autobot was victim of very bad ideas that seemed brilliant at the time and only turned out catastrophic later.

Not that being stuck in the bottom of a canyon was a catastrophe, but there was a long list of places Sideswipe would rather be. The young Autobot wasn't alone in feeling this way, judging from the string of curses coming from somewhere to the left. Blurr was getting to be quite creative, stringing together several choice phrases that even Sideswipe, who had come of age on the burned streets of war-torn Helix, had never heard before. No doubt the older Autobot had determined that yes, they were trapped down here and yes, once again, it was Sideswipe's fault.

"This is all your fault," Blurr finally accused the younger 'Bot, repeating what Sideswipe already knew. Blurr wasn't exactly the most patient mech in the universe and the glare he was giving Sideswipe from behind his battle mask would freeze even a hardened Decepticon. "Here's a thought you can stick up your processor. Next time you decide to act like an idiot, do me a favor and make sure I'm on another continent."

If anyone else had spoken to Sideswipe that way, the young Autobot would have instantly responded with howling objections. First of all, Sideswipe's shot had hit Tidal Wave in head, something the other Autobots hadn't managed to do. So it had hit the back of his helmet instead of Tidal Wave's ugly but vulnerable face; that detail didn't really matter. Secondly, who would have expected the enraged Tidal Wave to blow up the whole mountainside in a gigantic temper tantrum, discharging enough missiles to result in an equally gigantic landslide? And who would have expected one of the lasers to hit Sideswipe in the chest? And thirdly, somewhere between the time Tidal Wave started firing at them and the time it took for the landslide to start, Blurr could have escaped. He had the fastest vehicle mode on land and could have easily gotten out of the way if only he hadn't tried to be noble by taking a wounded Sideswipe with him. The result was that both mechs were caught in the landslide which carried them down the mountain before dumping them over a cliff.

So now they were here, wherever here was, and Sideswipe was stuck with a very pissed off Blurr. A very pissed off Blurr that Sideswipe wasn't about to argue with.

"Sorry, Commander Blurr." The smaller Autobot apologized. "I won't do it again."

Blurr made a sound that could be interpreted as either a grunt, growl or sigh. "You say that every time you do something stupid. And I've told you before, it's not Commander Blurr. Just Blurr." He didn't sound as angry anymore, instead turning his attention to the cliff walls, looking for a way to climb to the top.

"It felt like we fell forever." Sideswipe remarked, looking up at the sky, not for the first time wishing on the ability to fly. How effortless some of the Decepticon jets made it seem, wheeling and diving through the air as if they did not have a care in the world. Jetfire was that way too sometimes. Maybe it was something all fliers shared, that carefree ability to let the world fall away, not letting it hold them back any more than gravity could.

But Sideswipe knew all about gravity.

"My comlink's busted." Blurr complained, examining the dented part of his gauntlet.

He had landed on his side and then Sideswipe had practically landed on top of him. He was lucky he wasn't banged up any worse than he was and immensely grateful for all the money he had spent on his heavy armor upgrades. It wasn't something any mere Autobot soldier could afford, but Blurr was hardly a simple soldier. His mercenary work had paid well and he was starting to wish he had continued with it instead of coming to this dust ball of a planet.

_That's the last time I do Scavenger any favors_, Blurr thought glumly to himself. Scavenger had been the one to contact Blurr, mentioning that there were Decepticons who needed a good beating and Autobots that could use his help, all the while forgetting to add just what kind of planet Earth was. Blurr preferred metallic planets like Cybertron where there was no dirt that could get stuck in rotors and gears and a thousand other places that left one with a spotted paint job instead of this organic planet with disgustingly primitive sentient lifeforms. Optimus was always going to great lengths to make sure they weren't discovered and Blurr didn't really understand why; it wasn't like the humans could _do_ anything about them being here.

"What about yours?" Blurr finally asked Sideswipe, who had been too silent for too long. Blurr studied the younger Autobot with a critical eye as he stood up. Before they fell off the cliff Blur had tried to help Sideswipe, the youngest and most vulnerable member of the team. Not to mention the most panicky and the most annoying, though Sideswipe did have his moments. He didn't annoy Blurr as much as he did when he first arrived, and the older 'Bot had come to tolerate his presence more than he did most of his other teammates. Sometimes he even enjoyed it. Sideswipe reminded him of his own youth, a time almost forgotten under all the battles he had fought.

One day Sideswipe would be old and bitter, as did everyone whose sparks had been tempered by the War. Lives change but memories remain. Blurr would always remember Sideswipe as he had first seen him; a kid caught in a bunch of burned-out cables, hanging up high in the air and hollering for help. Sideswipe had also cried out when Tidal Wave had shot him and the terror underneath the cry had made Blurr leap to his side. When the earth beneath them shook, Blurr had held on to Sideswipe. When the ground started to move, Blurr kept his deathgrip around Sideswipe's middle. When the earth fell away Blurr still didn't let go. He had taken the brunt of the fall but Sideswipe had taken the most damage.

Sideswipe's armor was made of the typical low-grade alloys that low-level soldiers used for their armor. Unlike Blurr's expensive armor, Sideswipe's hadn't held up well at all. There were a number of minor injuries; both shin guards were dented along with a hip brace, one of his gauntlets had fallen off, but the most serious damage was to his chest.

The chest plate was always the most heavily armored area of any 'Bot or 'Con because it had to protect the lifespark. Depending on the alternate mode, a few large mechs could afford to have several feet of metal protecting their chests. Sideswipe however, wasn't a very big 'Bot and as things stood now he was in a bad way, for the shoddy chestplate was beaten out of shape, and missing several pieces. There was also a large burned lump of blackened, melted metal on his left side, a souvenir from Tidal Wave.

"Mine's no good." Sideswipe replied to Blurr's earlier question and Blurr caught the strained undertone to his voice. If Sideswipe's armor had been busted up this bad there was a good chance that the sensitive synthflesh and the vital areas underneath were damaged.

_If he's unable to function…_With their communication links broken there wasn't much Blurr could do. With time his self-repair system could fix the communication problem, but he wasn't sure if time was something Sideswipe had.

"What's wrong?" He asked bluntly. Sideswipe tried to stand up straighter under his gaze.

"Nothing's wrong, Commander Blurr." The younger Autobot said with much bravado before shivering slightly, a recoil reflex of strained circuitry. "My armor's just a little dented, that's all."

"Your chestplate is almost crushed." Blurr observed dryly. "This is why you don't go with the cheap alloys, Sideswipe."

"It was all I could afford." Sideswipe replied honestly. Sideswipe had, of course, stolen the armor off of another mech back on Cybertron who was dead and therefore couldn't use it anymore. At the time Sideswipe had nothing at all and so buying armor was out of the question. Stealing was all the young 'Bot could afford to do. At least this was how Sideswipe justified it, not wanting to tell Blurr the full truth for fear of what the older mech would think.

"Whatever. You don't become an Autobot for the pay. That's what mercenaries are for." It took Sideswipe a moment to process that Blurr was making a joke, something he hardly ever did.

"Better take that chestplate off and let me look at you, Sideswipe." He continued, knowing it was rare for any Transformer to remove their armor except in dire circumstances, but judging the situation to be rapidly proceeding in that direction. "Because right now, you're not looking so good."

"Weren't you a mercenary, Commander Blurr?" Sideswipe asked in a hopeful attempt to distract Blurr from the subject at hand.

"Course I was. How else did you think I got these upgrades? Not on Cybertron, that's for sure. Not much you can get on Cybertron anymore." Behind his visor his optics flickered as his thought processor shifted gears.

Sideswipe noticed and wondered what he was thinking about, what he was remembering. How did Blurr see Cybertron? Where had Blurr been created and where had he spent his early years? Was he a factory mech or did he come from one of the old families? Did he remember the time before the War? Or had he been born after it already started?

_I don't really know anything about him at all._

He had to have been born after. No one Sideswipe knew remembered how Cybertron was before the War. It had gone on for so long that even the precise reasons for why the War began in the first place had been long forgotten underneath the names of those who had lived and died in its clutches.

"We need to see about getting you some upgrades," Blurr observed. "If you had better armor you wouldn't be so banged up right now."

"It's not that bad." Sideswipe mumbled.

"Sure it isn't."

"I'll be fine till the others get here."

"Sure you will."

"I'm just a little dizzy, that's all." Sideswipe sat back down on the ground, leaning against the rocks of the cliff base while internal sensors were busy relaying the message that something was definitely not right.

"Sure." Blurr moved to stand over Sideswipe, the sarcasm thick in his voice, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at the young mech. "Must be your processor got banged up too, cause you're making less sense than usual. Quit trying to be so tough and let me see what's wrong."

"You're not a medibot," Sideswipe muttered stubbornly. "I can wait for Red Alert."

"No. You can't." Blurr told Sideswipe flatly. "You got shot and fell over a cliff. You're in bad shape and our communications are broken. Who knows how long it's going to take the others to find us. I need you fully functional Sideswipe, and if you're not then I need to know why. Take off the chestplate."

Blurr was right of course and Sideswipe knew it. There was nothing to be done; Sideswipe's internal sensors were reporting more and more damage, too much for Sideswipe's self-repair unit to handle. Still Sideswipe couldn't do it. There was no way.

"I told you to quit acting so tough." Blurr was starting to get annoyed again. "We all know the truth."

_We all know how weak you really are._ Blurr didn't say that, exactly, but Sideswipe knew that was what he meant. It was true, of course. Blurr was superior to Sideswipe; excellent and exacting with his calculations, deadly efficient with his long-range sniper rifle and quick on the battlefield. If Blurr hadn't been such a loner, if he hadn't left the Autobots and Cybertron to pursue a mercenary career by now he very well could have been a high-ranking officer. Sideswipe had little or no chance of becoming an officer, or of ever becoming anything more than a simple soldier.

_And if he finds out, you won't even be that._ Sideswipe sighed internally, but there was nothing to be done. No more hiding anymore. Maybe Blurr will understand. _But he won't. They never do. You should know that by now._

_Red Alert understood, s_aid a small voice inside.

_But Blurr won't._ Sideswipe hated this internal arguing.

With heavy hands Sideswipe began to undo the complicated lock system holding the chestplate together. The burned metal on the plate made the task much more difficult since it had melted together some of the locking mechanisms and Sideswipe lacked the strength to pull them apart. It hurt to move.

"Here." Blurr knelt down beside Sideswipe to examine the burned side of the chestplate. This close up he could see how bad the damage was, able to make out a few streaks of pale synthflesh underneath the blackened metal and, worst of all, drops of energon fluid seeping through the rents.

_It's worse than I thought_. He placed his hands on the broken lock and glanced at Sideswipe's face for a moment. The younger mech had grown silent and still, only the blue glow of his optics moved as the light behind them flickered. He was scared. Blurr had seen enough injured soldiers on the battlefield to recognize that look. Sometimes Blurr thought it would have been for the best if they had never been programmed for fear.

Sideswipe's lower lip trembled in a way that makes him seem very young before he finally nodded, giving Blurr the permission he had silently asked for.

Blurr broke the lock, snapping it in two _I'll fix it for him later_ he thought while the blackened metal crumbled underneath his fingers. The metal groaned; no, it was Sideswipe who groaned. Blurr tossed the ruined chestplate aside.

And froze.

For a few moments the canyon was as quiet as it had been before the two Autobots had fallen from the sky. Sideswipe shifted slightly, staring at Blurr's face and wishing he wasn't wearing the battle mask. It would easier to tell what he was thinking without it.

The eyes narrowed slightly behind the visor until they were slashes of burning light.

"Sideswipe," he demanded in a carefully flat tone, "what have you done to yourself?"

"Surprise," she whispered.


	2. blah

**Scent of a Sideswipe**

**2 **

_Obligatory Note: Thank you so much for the kind reviews. Wasn't sure this was going to go over so well. Yes, there is more. This inane journey will continue until school returns to take over my brain once more. Nothing like staving off finals by writing a cross dressing transformers fic. PG-13 rating because boobies make a cameo appearance._

There were many thoughts running through Blurr's processor at the moment, but none of them seemed to make much sense. Something was very wrong. Sideswipe's chest seemed to be swollen in one… no, two places. At first he had thought it was a deformity, something caused by being shot, before noticing the dark sensory nodes placed on the peaks of both swollen areas. Only then did the realization send pinpricks throughout his mainframe, telling him that Sideswipe was not at he, but a she.

He could be excused for not instantly understanding what she was. He had never seen that particular part of cybernetic anatomy except on the dim holo-vids that young soldiers shared between themselves. Sideswipe understood. From very early on she had known the power and danger of her body, constantly aware that most mechs had never seen a femme before. She was one of the last but what did she care? She had often wished with all the power in her spark that she had been born male instead of female. Life would have been **so**much easier.

As a whole the femmes had been one of the first casualties of the war, for they could not be created in the same way mechs could. Blurr never knew exactly why, having only a rough idea that it was linked to some difference in their lifespark that the legendary Vector Sigma supercomputer could not recreate. They could only be made in the old way, the physical way that Blurr only had a shadowy idea of buried deep in his programming.

There were so few femmes left that they were protected by the leaders on both sides. Blurr had accepted long ago that he would never see, much less touch, a femme. _And_ _I was wrong, apparently_, he thought.

"I'm sorry Commander Blurr. Please don't be mad at me." She pleaded, wishing he would say something. Wishing for anything but this awkward silence.

"Don't… gah, don't call me Commander Blurr." He replied roughly, shaking his masked head. "I'm not your commander; you're not even a soldier. You're a… a femme. A slaggin' femme."

"I am too a solider!" She yelled, ignoring the warning protest of her internal sensors. He had to understand. He just had too! "I've fought just as hard as anyone. Optimus even said-"

"If Optimus knew what you really were he would ship you back to Cybertron immediately." Blurr interrupted, even though he knew that they had no way to get back to Cybertron at the moment. This only angered him further. "You shouldn't even be here. Femmes aren't allowed to leave Cybertron."

"Don't ya think I know that?" Her shoulders slumped under his accusations and she felt something warm trickle down her side. She glanced down, and Blurr's optics followed hers.

There was a bad burn below her left breast, dangerously close to the lifespark chamber, that had blistered the silver synthflesh. Extending upward from the burn was a long, jagged gash running along her side up to her shoulder, cutting a line of fire through her wiring.

The circuits had been severed. Blurr cursed and held her by the shoulder, the uninjured one.

"Stay still." He commanded, wishing that Red Alert was here. Sideswipe was right, he wasn't a medibot. There was internal damage, parts of the wiring were leaking vital energon while snapped circuitry was spitting angry tongues of electricity through the sliced synthflesh.

"How's your energon supply?"

"It's… at 30 capacity." Sideswipe sighed. "It was 35 not that long ago; it must be draining faster than I thought."

That was no good. At this rate she would go into stasis lock before the hour was out and if that happened… Usually Autobots could be brought back from stasis lock, provided they had the right technology and there was no damage to the lifespark. Still, it was a risk Blurr wasn't willing to take.

He was angry with her, angry at her for lying, for deceiving them all, for not staying on Cybertron like she should. What if she died? He had never seen a femme before and now he would have to watch one die. Watch Sideswipe die. Sideswipe was Sideswipe, femme or not. No, he wouldn't let that happen.

"Listen. I can't fix most of this, but I can seal the wiring shut and stop some of the leaking. That's the biggest problem." He opened the small compartment on his upper arm and took out a slender burning instrument. She stared at it. "This is going to hurt."

It seemed as if he was seeing Sideswipe for the first time as she looked up at him. Staring at her, really, truly looking at her he noticed small, hidden things that had escaped him before; the angles of her face, the delicate softness of her features, the curves of her body in places where his was all hard planes and angles. She almost seemed to be almost beautiful.

_Sideswipe? Beautiful? _He groaned inwardly, finding it difficult to stop thinking of Sideswipe as a mech, and almost impossible to reconcile that image with the idea of Sideswipe as a femme.

"I trust you." She leaned her head against the canyon wall and stared up at the sky. She knew he was angry; she didn't want to look at him because his anger made her ashamed. Easier to look at the endless sky than to try to fathom the endless glow of Blurr's optics.

_I don't have anything to be sorry for_, she told herself sharply. _I knew if I told him then he would tell Optimus. I knew it._ She felt miserable and she didn't like it. She had spent most of her life running from that feeling. It was a terrible thing, a kind of sadness that would eat you from the inside out and leave you feeling like a hollow husk, a shadow of yourself.

She had never expected Blurr to make her feel that way.

_This would be so much easier if she didn't have breasts, _Blurr sighed to himself, unsure exactly where to touch her. Finally he opted for the upper part of her shoulder, using one hand to peel away some of her synthflesh to be able to see the broken circuitry better. With his other hand he flicked the burning instrument and the laser hissed to life. He was careful and exacting with his meticulous touch as he began operating on her. She hissed at the pain and he paused, gauging her reaction.

Her mouth was open, her face twisted in anguish, her lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing sharp dental plates. The look of a wild spark caged within a metallic one. If she had told him to stop, he would have. If she had screamed or cried he would have listened. But she was silent in her pain. It revealed an inner strength that up to this moment Blurr wasn't sure she had.

He went back to work, sealing every leak he could find although there were a few deep inside her wiring that he could not reach. This was all he could do. He released her.

"It's done."

She lowered her gaze to stare at him, her face soft, smooth and blank like the surface waters of the earthen seas.

"I'm sorry," he added as an afterthought, lost in looking at her.

"Huh? What for?"

"Hurting you."

"Oh. It had to be done though, right?" She wrinkled her nose, the synthflesh moving fluidly. "Wasn't that bad." She lied.

"Sideswipe." He stood up and walked away; every line and angle of his body conveying frustration. He wished the others were here, he wished she had never taken off her chestplate and things could have continued as they had been before. There are things he did not understand. He didn't know what to do and maybe that was what bothered him the most. As a soldier you were trained to handle all situations. As a mercenary it was a given. Uncertainty could kill you, would kill you, both on and off the battlefield.

"You could go for help, ya know. This canyon can't be that big, if you transform you can drive outta here in no time," she pointed out, sensing his resentment.

"Oh that's a great idea," he replied sarcastically. "I'm not leaving you alone, Sideswipe. What if the 'Cons find you? And if you die, how am I supposed to explain all this to Optimus?"

Sideswipe didn't have an answer for him. Either way she was going to get shafted. Once Optimus found out she was a femme, she wouldn't be allowed out of the base ever again. This was her probably her last chance to be on Earth. She wished she wasn't so banged up, she would enjoy it more.

Earth was beautiful. She had thought so from the first moment she saw it from the darkness of space. It was one of those rare organic planets so rich with life and color that it glowed like a gem. So different from Cybertron. Earth wasn't broken or ruined, it was vibrant and alive.

She had come here because of Blurr, because he had saved her life and because she had been unable to forget. He wasn't easy to track down, but she was very good at hacking into confidential information systems. It had seemed like such a golden opportunity when she found out he was on Earth, and that Tidal Wave, the gigantic battleship, was going there as well. Hiding as a stowaway aboard a Decepticon starship had been dangerous, but she thought it was worth it.

Now, she knew she had been wrong. It would have been better if she had just stayed on Cybertron. That way her secret would be safe. Now everything was ruined.

Her brother had warned her about that. He told her that if anyone found out the truth they would do terrible things to her. Things that would make their lost mother cry. She didn't want to make their lost mother cry, did she? She wanted to be good. She would listen. She would keep hidden, keep quiet, keep safe. She had promised him.

And she had broken that promise.


	3. yay

**3**

The light was starting to fail in the canyon, casting large shadows against the walls. Soon it would be dark and still no one came. The silence and the waiting was killing Sideswipe. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have to think. It wouldn't be so terrible if her thoughts would only stop being so depressing.

She wondered if Optimus would yell at her like her brother always used to do when she got in trouble. How angry would he be? Surely he wouldn't be **that** upset. She had never seen the Prime get really, truly angry, not even when he was fighting with Megatron. Compared to all the terrible things Megatron had done, her lie – her very minor, completely harmless lie- seemed like nothing at all.

Maybe he wouldn't be angry then. Maybe he would just be disappointed. She thought on that for a moment before deciding she would rather he be angry at her than disappointed. Anger was a quicksilver emotion, it would come and go. Disappointment lingered.

Was Blurr still angry with her? Or was he disappointed too? For some reason, the thought of him being disappointed with her bothered her as much as the Prime did.

"So, Commander Blurr," she began, trying to make small talk. "What part of Cybertron were you from?"

He stood immobile as a statue with his back sullenly turned towards her. He wouldn't even look in her direction so either he was still angry or her partial nudity was bothering him. _Well, it's not like I can help it. He was the one who broke my chestplate_.

The silence was annoying. Definitely.

"I'm from Helix," she said brightly as if answering a question he did not ask. "You ever been to Helix? I guess not, there's not much left of Helix anymore. Who wants to see a bunch of old burned out buildings anyway? I heard it used to be a nice area, there was a park and an academy and a bunch of skyscrapers where some of the old Overlords lived. But that was all before the War."

She paused, not sure if she should continue. Blurr didn't even seem to be listening and besides, what interest could he possibly have in her memories? She was pretty sure he was a factory-made 'Bot. His memories would be nothing like her memories, there would be no family, no father, no mother, no brother. There would be no one at all. But talking got her mind off of thinking about her injuries. Talking had always been her way. By talking, by listening she had managed to get out of tough situations before.

"There used to be this ruin. It was… well I guess it had been a museum or a school or something like that. Got all busted up during the Second Battle for Helix. A bunch of runaways lived there afterwards." She didn't mention that she was one of those runaways. Being a runaway brought with it a certain stigmata, revealing a weakness and an uncertainty of your own self. True to their names, runaways had ran away from both sides, Autobot and Decepticon, wanting no part in the War, preferring to live like refugees in the ruins.

"Anyway, there were all these busted-up statues in that busted-up building. Never knew who they were, famous dead guys I guess. I didn't know any of their names and it didn't say what faction they were either. And a lot of 'em were blasted to scrap and back like someone had used 'em for target practice."

Someone had. She remembered standing beside her brother, carefully aiming the small blaster he had "found". How he would reach out and adjust her grip, repeating the few phrases of advice he could give. The sound of his voice echoed in the ruins. She missed hearing him talk, even if it was just to yell at her. Once he was gone that part of her life had shriveled and died.

_Not going to think about that now, she told herself._

"But there was this one that wasn't broken at all and it was weird 'cause everything else was, ya know." Strange how she still remembered it after all this time, that single imposing statue. Remembered standing at its enormous feet and looking up, up, up until she could see the noble, but kind, face. She didn't understand. In the world she knew, the world of war, there was no place for kindness.

They never used that statue for target practice. No one did.

"It was like nothing could touch him, no matter how bad everything else all around him was. And he was huge, at least as big as Optimus, no, bigger than Optimus. And he had this armor, only it wasn't like any armor I've ever seen before. I remember his helmet, he had a great helmet, it had this… this… this flare," Sideswipe stuttered, at a loss for a better word. "Always wanted armor like that."

Blurr turned his head slightly to look at Sideswipe over his shoulder and she caught the blue gleam of an optic lens behind his visor. So he had been listening after all. She wondered if she had said too much.

"What do you mean by… flare?" He asked.

"Flare. Like, ya know, pointy. It was all pointy."

"Pointy." Blurr said flatly.

"Yes, pointy." She was slightly irritated at his tone, but glad that he was at least talking to her again. "There were these pointy-horn things. Thirteen of 'em."

His optics narrowed slightly and he turned around to face her fully. Sideswipe wondered if he was going to yell or something, but instead he took her by complete surprise by laughing. His laughter sounded funny, its merry echoes distorted by the battle mask, giving it an almost sinister tone. She had never heard him laugh before.

"You idiot." He wheezed. "That was Prima. That wasn't a museum at all, it was a church."

"I don't see what's so funny. I've never heard of him." Sideswipe glared. She wasn't even sure what a church was exactly, but she wasn't about ask Blurr and have him laugh at her about that too. No one in her old gang had the least idea who that old statue was, or what kind of building they were living in. Most of them didn't really care about anything besides surviving to see tomorrow.

He stopped laughing and looked at her. "Never heard of Prima? The firstborn? The Matrix carrier? 'Till all are one' and all that other stuff Optimus spouts?"

"Oh." She shifted slightly. "Yeah, I've heard some of the others talk about the Matrix. Didn't think it was real."

Blurr walked over and sat down beside her, though he pointedly averted his optics away from her chest.

"It's real. It's what gives the Primes their power. Prima had it first and they say when he was betrayed and killed his lifespark went into the Matrix."

"That's terrible," she mused. "He looked so nice, he really did make a great statue. Sad he had to die like that."

"What's sad is you didn't even know who he was." He pointed out.

"I do too," she lied. "I was just seeing if you did, that's all. I mean, everyone knows Prima."

"Really? Well then, what did he do?"

"What did he… uh… he was the dude who got betrayed… and uh, then he got killed."

"Is that it?"

"Is there more?"

"You're a terrible liar. You only know that because I just told you."

"Fine." She flung her good hand out to her side in exasperation. "I don't know. Anything. At all. Happy now?"

"No."

"Of course not. Are you ever? Frag." She narrowed her own optics in irritation. "You know, when you laughed just now, it scared me. Seriously."

"I try not to ever take you seriously, Sideswipe."

"And I always take you seriously, Commander Blurr." She emphasized his title, waiting for his rebuke. _He is so predictable_, she thought.

Only he didn't say anything in reply. Maybe he wasn't so predictable after all. The silence returned, much to Sideswipe's dismay. Even their verbal sparring was better than this. She risked a glance in his direction, taking note that he seemed to be staring at nothing. Thinking. _Hasn't he had enough of thinking since we fell into this forsaken canyon?_

"So… okay, fine, what's the deal with this Prima then? Was he a warrior like us?"

"No."

"No?" She was surprised. _How else could you become famous?_

"There was no War in his time."

"Lucky him."

It occurred to her that Blurr seemed almost reluctant to talk about this. Not that he ever came across as really ecstatic or eager to talk about anything, but his speech seemed more abrupt that usual.

Fine. She wasn't going to press him and have him get angry at her again. Surely there was something else they could talk about.

"He was a prophet." Blurr spoke, shifting his weigh as he did so. "They said he could see into the future, that he knew the War was coming and tried to stop it."

"Well, that obviously didn't work," she sneered without thinking.

"They used to say that he would save us. Be born again to light our darkest hour. And lots of Cybertronians used to believe in that."

A savior then. A hero. The kind of person they built statues for and never tore them down. She remembered his face and almost felt bad for sneering at him. "Does Optimus believe that?"

"Yes. I think you have to believe to be able to carry the Matrix."

"Do you?" She glanced over at him.

"No." His voice sounded bitter behind his battle mask. "It's worthless now. Maybe it meant something once, before the War, but what's the point? Too many of us are gone for anyone to ever really believe in Prima again. Whatever our darkest hour was, it must have already come and gone."

Once more they were silent. In the distance there was the sound of small organic creatures chirping to one another. The canyon grew darker. Another day was passing.

"I just liked his armor," she said quietly.

Blurr smiled behind his mask.

"Maybe when you get back to Cybertron you'll meet up with a mech who'll buy you some nice armor. Femme armor."

"That's not what I want." She frowned.

"So this is what you want? Disguising yourself as a mech? Getting shot at? Lying to everyone? Spending all day on this outdated planet?"

"I'd rather be here than be on Cybertron."

"Your processor must be damaged," he snorted. "I can't wait to get back home."

"It's not home, and I don't miss it," she said fiercely. "Home was destroyed by the stupid War. That's why I left. I know you don't agree with me leaving Cybertron, but when we go back, I'll never be able to leave again."

"I think you're overreacting."

"Am I? Well, what do you know? You aren't me." The old bullying tone had crept into her voice, something she normally only used with HotShot, her substitute 'bro'. Never with Blurr. But she was tired and restless and hurting.

"You don't know what it's like to be a femme. High Command doesn't let you do anything. They treat you like a piece of property and tell you not to do this and that cause it's not safe and they keep you so safe and locked up you might as well be a prisoner."

"I know that's not true. Optimus doesn't keep his femme that way." Blurr pointed out.

"See? Even you do it. 'His femme', like she belongs to him."

"I didn't mean it like that." He shook his head. "They belong together. They've been together for who knows how long. What's so bad about that? She gets special treatment, she's taken care of, has a place to live and someone who cares about her."

"But she chooses to be with him."

Blurr sighed. "And your point is?"

"Think about it, dummy. When we go back to Cybertron, what if Optimus decides to Bond me to some old high-ranking Autobot who he thinks will be good for me and that's that."

"Whatever Optimus does will be in your best interest. That's his main concern." He frowned behind his battle mask. "I doubt Optimus will force you to Bond with anyone, he doesn't have the power to do that. Besides, who on Cybertron would want you?"

She scowled at him. "Martial Law Ammendment 3756."

"What about it?" Blurr did a quick scan of the old law files buried on his hard drive, but nothing turned up under that name.

"It states that as of the year 3756 of the Fourth Great Cybertronian Cycle all unbonded femmes will hereby fall under the jurisdiction of the Prime." She repeated mechanically. "So yes, Commander Blurr, Optimus Prime does have the power to do whatever he wants with me."

"3756. That was when Iacon fell."

He had been in that battle, he remembered the fighting and the sight of the City of Lights burning. It had been more of a massacre than anything else. They were outnumbered and the Decepticons hadn't taken any prisoners that day. He remembered walking through the ruins afterwards, looking for survivors and seeing the burned out husks of a group of femmes huddled together in death. Even they hadn't been spared.

"Femmes aren't supposed to fight." He said sharply. "They're supposed to stay out of battles. They're supposed to stay safely on Cybertron."

It was her turn to sigh. "I won't be happy there."

"And what, you're happy here?"

"Yes. I have friends here. I can do what I want here, well, most of the time anyway. Even being stuck at the bottom of a cliff isn't so bad as long as you have a friend with you."

Blurr stiffened slightly, the image of the broken femmes frozen forever in burning Iacon playing over and over through his processor. Their friends hadn't helped them, their friends had all died. What if Sideswipe had been one of them? He could see her body now, lying on the ravaged ground, her darkened optics staring sightlessly up at the heavens, forever asking why. Forever never knowing the answer.

His processor rebelled at the thought, erasing the image. Not her. Not his friend. Did it bother him? Being her friend? No. Yes.

"Friends don't lie to each other." His tone was flat, as it almost always was, but she caught the sharpness underneath. Only someone who knew Blurr well would be able to pick up on it.

"I didn't exactly lie. I mean, none of you ever **asked** me if I was a femme, so technically… well." She tried to explain, wanting, needing him to understand.

"That doesn't matter. You weren't truthful to us. How are we supposed to trust you again? How am I supposed to trust you?"

She didn't answer and he was aware that the conversation had somehow shifted to the very thing he did not want to talk about, that nagging feeling of betrayal and hurt tugging at a corner in his processor. What did it matter to him if Sideswipe was a mech or a femme?

_Because she didn't trust you. Didn't tell you._ And he didn't want to follow that train of thought to its conclusion, didn't want to examine why having her trust mattered so much to him. Better to just let things be.

"I already told you I was sorry, Blurr." No 'Commander Blurr' this time, just 'Blurr'. She bowed her head, her helmet feeling very heavy, her body feeling very numb.


	4. narg

**4**

It was fully dark now and Blurr was worried they going to be here all night. He wasn't sure if Sideswipe could last that long with her energon supply already being so low.

"You should try and power down. Take yourself offline. Conserve your energon as much as possible." He told her, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

She looked at him silently, checking her inner diagnostics and not liking what they told her. She had been feeling the slow withdrawal effects of energon loss throughout her body for some time now, leaving her feeling cold and empty. She had been hurt before, but never this bad. She didn't like not being able to move without her broken locomotor sensors throbbing. She didn't like the dizzy feeling that her low level of energon was causing. She didn't like Blurr being angry. Didn't like knowing she was the reason. She wished it would all just go away.

_Let the world fall away. Gravity. To be able to fly. How I wish._

"I'm broken up real good, aren't I?" She laughed into the darkness as if mocking it, only her optics and the pale glow of her inner mouth visible.

"You'll be fine once we get you to the base. You saw what Red Alert did with Smokescreen and he was way worse than you are now."

"And what if we don't get to the base? I mean, if they haven't found us by now maybe they never will."

"We'll get to the base." He repeated stonily.

"This isn't exactly how I wanted to die."

"Don't be stupid. You aren't dying." Of all the dumb things to say. He hadn't taken into account Sideswipe's flair for the dramatic, though he should have. He remembered the pointless things she would do. A handstand to get his attention. Racing with HotShot to prove nothing to no one. Yelling just to hear the sound of her voice.

"That's not what you said earlier."

"I never said you were dying."

"Yes you did. I said you could leave me here and then you said no because if I died you didn't want to explain it to Optimus."

A pause the length of a human breath.

"Don't argue with me, Sideswipe. I want you to power down now."

Her optics dimmed for a moment and he thought she had listened to him. Then he realized with grim certainty they were dimming because she did not have enough energon left to power them fully.

Her thoughts were drifting off to odd angles. There was also an annoying red blinking light that was flashing in the corner of her optical screen. She switched it off; she already knew she was low on power.

_And if I do go into stasis lock. And if I do die._

She thought of him then, the one she had never been able to forget. The one who had always been there, the one she had always followed, until at last he went to a place she could not go.

"I saw my brother die."

"Sideswipe, don't-"

"It was during a 'Con raid." She interrupted. Maybe she hadn't even heard him. He couldn't see her face clearly in the darkness but her voice sounded different. Distant.

"We thought we were pretty safe, that no one cared about Helix anymore, that no one would bother. He was smart, my brother. It was his idea to disguise me as a mech; he even changed my vocal modulation and everything. He thought we made a good team.

"I still remember... can't forget. You ever heard a photon cannon? Never heard one before. Never want to hear one again. It makes the air scream, ya know? We never even saw the 'Con till it was too late. The air screamed and then he screamed and fell but then he went real quiet. Like even then he thought it was impossible that he could die. Would die. He was smiling. And the 'Con was smiling too, that's all I remember about him, his smile and his purple insignia and his photon cannon.

"I ran away. I should have stayed. I should have tried to fight him. But I was scared so I ran. He killed my brother and I ran away. And I hated myself for it."

"He had a photon cannon," Blurr said slowly. "There was nothing you could have done."

"I never told anyone that before." She gave a long suffering metallic sigh. "He was the only one who ever really cared about me. He was the one started calling me Sideswipe. You know, after the-"

"I know who Sideswipe was," Blurr interrupted. "Quite a name to live up to, don't you think?"

"You'll see. One day, they'll remember me just like they do him."

She didn't want Blurr to watch her die. It was getting harder to concentrate on a single thought. Was this what dying felt like? It reminded her of leaning over a dark pit trying to see the bottom and the farther you leaned out the more dangerous it was but the less you cared.

"I think you should power down now."

"Maybe." She liked the sound of his voice. She remembered the first time she saw him, when she had been frantically trying to untangle herself from a nest of wires. Even then his voice had been calm. _Even then. Even now._ "Will you take off your battle mask?"

"Why?" He asked cautiously.

"I want to see what you look like without it." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

He wanted to point out that it was dark and he doubted she had enough power left to switch her optics over to infrared. Yet he had never seen Sideswipe in a mood like this. She really did seem to think she was going to die.

_And if the others don't get here sometime soon she'll be right, _he thought grimly.

No, she wasn't going to die. He had seen soldiers hurt worse than this. She just needed medical attention and the more time that passed without it the more dangerous the situation would become.

"Fine. But then I want you to power down."

"Yes, Sir." Even in her whisper he could hear the trace of sarcasm. She really shouldn't hang around HotShot or Jetfire so much; they were obviously a bad influence.

He disengaged the locks to the battle mask and then removed it, feeling like he was leaving a part of himself behind. Without the mask he felt vulnerable, and he thought that must be because he had worn it for so long. It was a strange sensation to feel the air of this planet touch his face. _I'm going to get dirt lodged in my synthflesh and if those earth germs infect my nanoprocessor, Primus knows that will take days to fix. Why did I agree to this?_

"I can hardly see." She whispered, lifting her functional arm and bringing her functional hand close to his face, almost, but not quite touching him. "Why'd'ya wear that thing all the time anyway?"

"Protection." He muttered. Didn't she know the dangers of being shot in an optic? Or know how sensitive an exposed synthflesh face was?

Then her fingers curled, the tips of them running along the side of his face briefly and he knew that yes, she did know how sensitive the face was. Her touch traced along his lower jaw and then up the other side, making the delicate synthflesh relay a forbidden pleasure to his mainframe. All thoughts of dirt, germs and nanoprocessors froze. Reacting through instinctive programming he reached up and grabbed her wrist, not hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough to make her stop. She pressed her palm against the smooth plane of his cheek, her fingers brushing his temple.

He didn't remove her hand but he didn't let go either. He wasn't sure what to do, he had never been touched like this, never let someone touch him like that. Physical pleasure was not something his processor was adept at dealing with, having never felt with it before.

Something flickered in her dim optics. She leaned forward as much as she could without causing pain.

"Commander Blurr. Blurr." Her voice had changed. It wasn't the voice of Sideswipe, or rather it wasn't the grating, scratchy, almost whiny tone he had come to associate with her. It was softer, a few octaves higher, but it wasn't unpleasant. Far from it. It was the kind of voice that was made for whispering and laughing, not for yelling or snarling. It was the voice of a femme. Her real voice.

"You know I came to Earth for you."

"Yes," he answered even though she had not asked. "That is what you told me before."

"You saved my life all those years ago and when I found you again, you had forgotten me." Her hand moved and he released his hold on her wrist. The fingers traveled downward, one of them brushing his lower lip. "Don't forget me this time."

Her optics dimmed and the hand fell away while her body went limp. He caught her to stop her from falling forward and then he held on because he did not want to let her go. For a moment he feared… no, she had just powered down and taken herself offline, leaving only her vital systems functional.

Finally.

_I really wish the others would get here. What's taking them so blasting long? Did we lose?_ _No, of course not. When Optimus and Jetfire link up there's nothing in the universe that can stop them, not even Megatron._

The others just didn't know where to look, that was all. Considering Tidal Wave had pretty much vaporized an entire mountain they would have no idea where to start. If only the comlink was working. If only there was something he could do.

Blurr didn't like not being able to do something. That was one of the reasons why he had left the army to be a mercenary. And strangely enough that seemed to be why Sideswipe had joined with the Autobots. Oh, she hadn't said as much but Blurr had learned long ago that it is not always what people say, but rather what they don't that matters. You just had to train yourself to listen.

She had grown up in Helix. She had a brother. She obviously wasn't one of the mass-produced assembly line 'Bots like Blurr. There had once been thousands of 'Bots like him. The War had made short work of them all. Now, unless he was greatly mistaken, he was the last of his model to still be functional. He had no family, no mother, no father, no brother or sister. He had only himself.

But Sideswipe was different. She was clearly from one of the old families in Helix, where the last vestiges of the old aristocracy, the Overlords, dwelled. The 'Cons had taken particular pleasure in razing Helix to the ground. Old wounds go deep. They hadn't forgotten how things were in the days before the War, when the 'Cons were treated as mindless brutes, second class citizens. Or at least Megatron never forgot.

_Before the War. Megatron remembers. Prime remembers._

She was a runaway too, that was clear though she had never said so. Something must have happened, her family must have died or been taken prisoner. She had lived with the brother who kept her hidden. Smart idea, that. And then the brother had died and she had been helpless. There was nothing she could do. She joined the Autobot army to do something.

What would it have been like to have a family? A father and a mother? The closest thing Blurr had to a father or mother was Vector Sigma, the supercomputer who had given his factory-made body its' lifespark. Was it something to be envious of? How was he supposed to be envious of something he did not understand? He had come off the assembly line fully programmed for battle. There was no period in his life that could ever be referred to as 'childhood'.

He was tired. His energon levels were low too, though not as low as Sideswipe's. He needed to recharge. It wasn't good to sit alone in the dark and think.

_But you aren't alone_, his spark whispered.

Sideswipe was here. In the darkness he held her as tightly as he had when they had fallen into the canyon.

**Endnote**: _So not good at these things, never know what to say. The next chapter is shaping up to be the last one, so I just wanted to thank everyone so far who took the time to review, especially Spin Firestorm, Simply Crisis, Ashana, SuperSkye, Super Metal Sonic and Majestic Burn for reviewing multiple chapters. It means a lot to me, even for a weird, wacky, nonsensical story like this one _


	5. dadum

**5**

With the dawn came the tamed roar of an engine. Blurr carefully tuned his audio receptors to the sound, worried that it might be a jet, or a helicopter. If the 'Cons found them now, after all this… No. It was too loud to be a jet engine. Bigger. He knew who it was then.

He laid Sideswipe on the ground, looking at her for a long moment before standing up. He committed her image to his memory bank so that some day, far from now when the War took him away, as he knew it would, he could look back and remember her like this. Remember that for one night he held her.

He replaced his battle mask, taking care to make sure no Earth-dirt was trapped inside. Then he lifted up her beaten chestplate and reattached it over her torso as best he could. The one lock was still broken but at least it covered up what needed covering up. The echo of the engine was still rumbling through the canyon when he finally fired a shot from his laser rifle into the air. The beam of light arced up, a golden arrow pointing the way against the azure sky if only someone was looking.

And he hoped Jetfire was.

Moments later the large Autobot swooped down into the canyon, swiftly transforming from vehicle to robot mode in midair.

"So I guess you two didn't get vaporized by Tidal Wave after all," the arrogant flier joked, landing beside Blurr. It wasn't often that Blurr made mistakes, but now that he had Jetfire wasn't about to let the opportunity pass by. "Man, talk about your dumb ideas. I didn't think you had it in ya, Blurr."

"Sideswipe who shot Tidal Wave, not me." Blurr gestured with his arm to his fallen comrade lay on the canyon floor and Jetfire's optics went wide.

"Is he… aw no. Not him." Jetfire approached Sideswipe as carefully as a four-ton transforming space shuttle could, all the teasing and sarcasm gone from his voice. It was strange to hear Jetfire sound so serious.

"He's not dead, but he's hurt pretty bad. He needs to get back to the base quick." Blurr explained while Jetfire bent down beside the prone form of Sideswipe.

"Sure. Sure. I can fly him back right away. What about you?" Jetfire glanced at him while lifting Sideswipe. Cradled against the bulk of Jetfire, Sideswipe looked especially small and frail.

_Sideswipe always looks small. _The though made him smile behind the mask.

"I'm fine. I can get back on my own if you can get me out of this canyon."

"And here I was thinkin' about leavin' you here." The sarcasm was back in Jetfire's voice now that he knew Sideswipe was going to be okay. Holding onto Sideswipe with one hand he jumped into the air and grabbed Blurr with the other. "One of these days," he groaned under the strain of lifting two heavy mechs, "you guys are gonna have to get flight upgrades. Jetfire's not always gonna be around to save your chassis, you know."

"You always refer to yourself in third person?" Blurr asked warily while dangling from Jetfire's hand, Sideswipe hanging limply beside him.

"Only when I'm workin'." He laughed, depositing Blurr on top of the canyon and then cradling Sideswipe against his chest. "You sure you can get back alright?"

"Just get Sideswipe to Red Alert." Blurr muttered before transforming. The long drive back would do him good.

"Is she going to be okay?"

The Autobot medic raised his helmeted head in alarm, staring at Blurr for a few moments before the edges of his mouth curled into a smile. "So you know."

Blurr shrugged and Red Alert turned back to the monitoring computer that was constantly calibrating Sideswipe's systems.

"She'll be fine once I get her back online. Some of the wiring will have to be replaced and a few of her locomotors got burned out. She'll have a scar over that cut, we don't have the technology here to completely heal synthflesh, but that's all the lasting damage she'll have. It could have been worse. You did good work on her circuits, closing them up like that. Were you ever a medic?"

"No. I've been stuck in enough places without them that I had to learn the basics." _Merc work. Have to know a little bit about everything and a lot about nothing._ Blurr shook his head. "So you knew?"

"About what? Oh. Her gender-type. Yes, for some time now."

"And you kept quiet about it?"

"She asked me not to tell anyone. She wasn't sure how the others would react. Was pretty nervous about the whole thing, even quoted Martial law 3756 to me."

"She seems to do that a lot," Blurr said dryly. "And you listened?"

"There is nothing more sacred than the trust between a medic and his patient." The medic intoned solemnly.

"But her being here is in violation of the rules."

"You never struck me as being a stickler for rules, Blurr." Red Alert tilted his helmeted head. "That interrogation program you have uploaded is illegal in several star systems that I can think of."

"But it's very effective." He frowned. How did Red Alert know about that? He'd fixed the few minor damages Blurr had incurred in battle, but Blurr hadn't thought the medic had gone poking around in his mainframe.

"Well, I would say the same for Sideswipe. Her skills are useful. Perhaps she is not the best fighter but she is skilled enough in other areas. Logic. Information systems. Interpersonal interactions. Something this team of ours definitely needs." He walked back to the prone form of Sideswipe lying inert on the operating table, her chest open, revealing her innermost circuitry. Blurr even caught a glimpse of her spark, a ball of soft white light nestled in an embrace of wires.

"Sometimes I wonder," the medicbot continued, "why I even bother. I may be able to fix my patients… my friends… today, but there is no guarantee against tomorrow. I have had friends that I lost. We all have. And the friends I fix today will go out to maim and kill tomorrow."

"As long as we're killing Decepticons what's it matter?" Blurr shrugged.

"Autobot. Decepticon. Remove the insignia, change a few programming files, we are all the same on the inside. It's like the Old Ones used to say, we are all Children of Primus. I am not a warrior. I have never understood the need for all this destruction or why the War had to happen in our time. Maybe I will live to see the War end, but I doubt it."

"Why?" Blurr asked cautiously.

"Why? You know why, Blurr. There will always be a Megatron, as there will always be a Prime. Always. Until the day all are one. Until then, well, we only have each other."

"I didn't come here for you to preach to me," Blurr muttered.

"Are you going to tell them, then? About her?" Red Alert demanded, pausing in the middle of his work to look at Blurr, waiting for his answer.

"Me?" Blurr shook his masked head. "No."

It was peaceful here when the day began to die. Up here on the mountain, overlooking the city and the people where all the noise was centered, the quietness and the stillness of this organic planet returned.

Why he had first climbed up this mountain he didn't know. At the time he had been angry at himself, and unsure. Something to do with the minicons and HotShot. It was the sunset that made him keep coming back. He had never seen a sunset before and the first time it had almost stunned him.

Now it was his place. He would return here, day after day and think. Usually he would replay the day's battle in his processor, trying to develop strategies and understand what he had done right and wrong. But more recently his thoughts had turned to thoughts of Sideswipe. And so he decided perhaps it was best to not think at all.

The light was beautiful. His logic processor told him it was nothing special, just the ultraviolet rays of a sun slowly killing itself by burning off its fuel. One day this earthen sun would die, as Cybertron's sun had done long ago, but for now it was brilliant and beautiful.

_Behold, my brethren. Look past the long night, for there, yea, even there in our darkest hour a light shall come forth. Until that day, my children. Til All are One._

Prima's words. Old dim memory. Who had whispered that into his ear? Blurr couldn't remember. Someone before one of his first battles. Someone who was probably dead now. Why was he thinking about it? Because of what Red Alert had said? He hadn't known the medic was so religious, but then again he was close to Prime. And Prime carried the Matrix.

_We only have each other._

"You didn't tell them."

Without looking back he knew who it was.

"No. I didn't."

"Why not? I totally thought you would."

"That is your decision to make. Not mine"

"Thank you, Commander Blurr." She came to stand beside him and he gave her a sidelong glance.

Red Alert had fixed her up pretty well, considering what he had to work with. Even her chestplate was fully repaired. He wondered if the gash had left a scar on her synthflesh like Red Alert said it would. Not that it mattered, he doubted he would ever see her exposed in such a way again.

"For the last time, it's just Blurr. Not Commander Blurr." A touch of irritation entered his voice. Was it really so hard to remember?

"Blurr." She looked down at the valley below and the distant horizon. "You like it up here, don't you. I've noticed you come up here a lot."

"Why aren't you training with HotShot?" He asked, ignoring her question. He didn't want her to think he had gone soft on her just cause she was a femme.

"He wanted to take it easy on me." She smiled. "Guess he thinks I need time to recover. I'm perfectly fine now."

Blurr made a noise that could mean either agreement or dissent.

"You know," Sideswipe said after a few minutes silence, "at night I come up here sometimes. You can see Cybertron then. It's just a little star though, usually over there."

She pointed and he turned to look not in the direction of her gesture, but at her.

"I thought you didn't miss it."

"I do, kinda. I miss how it used to be, the mechs I used to know." She sighed. Each one stared at the other until Sideswipe began to fidget, as always uncomfortable with silence. "Okay. This is awkward. I'm gonna go."

"Wait." Her optics flickered towards him. Had they always been so large? So brilliantly blue? _So much for not going soft._ "Stay here. Watch."

"For what?"

"You'll see." He smiled behind his battle mask. "Take off your helmet."

She tilted her head, confused. It wasn't a good idea, up here where anybody could see if they only looked. But then again taking off her chestplate hadn't been a good idea. And shooting Tidal Wave hadn't been one either. Her life was full of bad ideas. But in the end it had turned out alright.

_Oh, what the frag ever._

She undid the locks of the helmet, a much simpler design that Blurr's and took it off with an extra flourish. She was rather proud of her synthlocks, always had been, always would be. They were dark, almost pure frigid black; the color her mother had chosen for her. Or so her brother said. She had kept them long because he had liked them, because he said their mother would have wanted it that way.

Free from her helmet, the thick synthlocks tumbled down her neck and Blurr stared. She smiled, suddenly shy, which was odd. After all, Blurr had seen her half naked. Why should she be shy around him? Maybe not shy, maybe it was nervousness. What was the difference?

Then he lifted his arm and brushed the side of her face with his fingers, tangling his hand in her synthlocks, feeling the heavy thickness of the strands. He ran his fingers through her hair, causing her optics to flare and a tremor to shiver through her body. Her spark felt heavy and from deep inside her mainframe came a sense of... loneliness. Was that the right word? She wasn't sure how to describe it, much less process it. She wanted to be closer to him. One with him. Was that such a terrible thing to want?

His hand fell to his side.

It happened, slowly, brilliantly. The sun hung on the edge of the western sky, reflecting its dying light into the valley below and the atmosphere above. Humans have seen sunsets hundreds upon hundreds of times, so much that they have grown almost immune to their beauty. But there is no sun upon Cyberton, and no atmosphere either.

Sideswipe had never seen a sunset like this. She was lost in the colors and the beauty. Blurr had shown it to her and she was grateful. He didn't hate her after all. His anger had burned itself out, like the day burns before the night. Her hand curled around his own, her body leaned into his while her optics lingered on the distant horizon.

The beauty of the falling sun and the colors it painted the sky was one of the few redeeming qualities this dustball of a planet had for Blurr. He could appreciate beauty because beauty was rare, almost as rare as the femmes themselves. He wanted to speak, wanted to say something profound, something great, something poetic.

But Blurr wasn't poetic. He simply stood silently by her side and let the sky say what he could not. They stood together, touching one another as much as they dared, and all seemed right with the world.

_Endnote_: _This was supposed to just be a silly little one-shot story that I ended up having way too much fun writing. I'm still surprised people actually like it. I could have made it longer, true, and I'm sorry if that disappoints anyone. I just wanted to finish it before college work takes over my life once more, because if I don't, then I never will. I hate it when people who write fanfics never finish them, and I don't want to be that person. Maybe someday I'll write a sequel of sorts to it when life is less hectic. But thank you very much everyone who reviewed, your comments kept me going and some of them even made me laugh. I wish you all the best._

_Thanks for reading to the bottom_

_Nai_


End file.
